


ghost of my heart

by zxrysky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, M/M, keith and shiro are brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zxrysky/pseuds/zxrysky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's the thing. Out of nowhere, this boy pops up on Keith's bed, flipping through Keith's notebook, and making coffee for Keith.</p><p>And when this boy stays very, very still, he's see through.</p><p>His name's Lance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghost of my heart

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith says, phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear as he backs into the door, arms full with a box as large as his torso. “Moving isn’t that hard. Almost everything is in place, anyways. Just got to arrange it all once I’m done.”

 

“But you’re messy,” Shiro replies, and Keith can hear the upward tilt of his lips, the muted laughter over the phone, the exasperated run of his fingers through his hair. “And you’re moving really far. Do you even know the campus?”

 

“Shiro, we _toured_ the campus together. My memory isn’t that bad.” He moves in, settling the box down next to his bed with a loud huff and Keith looks down, staring at his sweaty, kinda dirty body and looking back at his clean bedsheets before groaning and sitting on the ground. “I’m sure I’ll do fine,” he mumbles petulantly. “It can’t be that hard to get around.”

 

“Keith, you got lost in our apartment complex just a week ago. The apartment complex in which we’ve been staying in for ten years.”

 

“I’ll make some friends who have a better sense of direction than me!” Keith shouts into the phone, lips curling up as he laughs. “Come on Shiro, it’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be cool. I’m going to college!”

 

“Yeah, a college boy who’s living alone in an apartment and may or may not get lost every day, and main saving grace is that he can cook.” Shiro pauses for a moment, breath hitching slightly. “But you know I’ll miss you, yeah? If you get lonely or anything, it’s just a three hour drive away. Come back often and sleep in your old room every now and then or it’ll get dusty. I’m sure not going to clean it for you.”

 

“I’ll be back to clean it myself,” Keith says, tone light. He pulls his knees to his chest, leaning back against the side of the bed and huffing out a breath. “I’ll miss you too. Who’s going to cook for you now that I’m all the way over here?”

 

There’s a silence, before Shiro slowly says, “convenience stores are just down the road.”

 

“Shiro!” Keith exclaims, laughing, clutching the phone tighter. “You can’t just live off instant noodles or takeout, or whatever you’ll be reduced to. Get Allura to take you out to eat proper food. Or learn how to cook more than just scrambled eggs.”

 

“Yeah yeah, Mr Independent, I’ll take your sound advice. But I should probably let you get back to unpacking, so I-”

 

There’s a loud crash, the ringing sound of glass shattering, the soft tinkle of shards falling on wooden floor, and Keith scrambles up, dashing out of his room to see what fell. He doesn’t remember unpacking any of the fragile items, any of the _glass_ items, not that he has many, and he skids to a stop right outside his bedroom door when he sees what _used_ to be an engraved glass cup on the floor.

 

The box labelled ‘fragile, do not touch’ with small exclamation marks and angry faces courtesy of Shiro is open, bubble wrap neatly placed on the table and tiny puffs of foam sticking to the flaps of the cardboard. Other cups - some engraved glass, some sandblasted glass, some just porcelain with Keith’s name scribbled over in five-year-old handwriting - are all on the table, arranged according to height order, and the broken engraved glass cup would probably have been in that empty space right between the first cup and the second cup.

 

And here’s the thing, Keith most certainly did _not_ touch that box. He planned to unpack the stuff in his room first, before moving outwards and he intended to tackle the box filled with fragile items after a good long break and his hands weren’t sweaty so he wouldn’t drop any of them.

 

The box should have been tightly closed with tape and string, left alone next to the wooden table in front of the kitchen.

 

There’s a frantic shouting in his ear and it takes Keith a while to realise that it’s Shiro, voice high and worried, trying to draw Keith’s attention.

 

“I-I’m here,” Keith mumbles, eyebrows still raised and eyes blown wide. It feels a little like he’s in shock. “Yeah?”

 

“I heard a loud crash?” Shiro asks, tripping over his words. “Are you okay? Did something fall on you?”

 

“No,” Keith says slowly, eyes trained on the glass shards on the ground. “Just- one of the cups fell. The glass one. It’s all over the floor so I’ll clean it up. Must have put it too close to the edge, or something.”

 

That’s wrong, Keith didn’t even _touch_ the cup.

 

“You’re not hurt?” Shiro confirms, and sighs heavily. “First day out of your old house and you’re breaking things.”

 

“I’ll be more careful,” Keith promises absentmindedly, carefully walking over to the shards and peering at them. He glances at the rest of the cups on the table and- weird. There’s something like fog pressed against the walls of the glass, like someone picked the cups up and breathed heavily against it as they inspected it.

 

No fingerprints, or at least no visible prints, but Keith’s pretty certain that the fog on almost every cup is condensation from someone’s breathing.

 

“I’ll start cleaning this up, so I’ll call you back?” Shiro nags at him for a little while more before they say their goodbyes and hang up. Keith places the phone on the table and goes off to search for the broom.

 

Maybe he did open the box. Maybe he _did_ take the cups out and accidentally placed one too close to edge. Maybe he did it all and he forgot about it.

 

But no, Keith’s very sure, one hundred percent certain, he did _not_.

 

-=-

 

“If you don’t wake up you’ll miss out on a chance to be bright and early for orientation.”

 

Keith groans, rolling around, stuffing his face into a pillow. He groggily opens one eye to stare at the clock and the beeping digits reflect back a dreadful seven a.m. It’s too early for him. He stayed up until two last night, unpacking like a demon possessed as he tried to keep his mind off the weird glass incident.

 

Seven in the morning is an unholy time. He drags the covers up until they cover the base of his neck and he tries his very best to bury himself in his pillow.

 

“Come on,” the voice wheedles, and there’s the flipping of pages. “Your notebook is very detailed on all the events happening today, wow, and yeah see here, right here-”

 

“Shut up Shiro,” Keith mumbles into his pillow, eyes squeezed shut. “I wanna sleep.”

 

“Needs over wants,” the voice says sagely. “And right now you need to get up and shower and change and get your ass over to campus because orientation is starting. This is the best time to go! You’ll get to wander around for a bit and meet new people before the crowd surges in.”

 

Keith’s too tired to argue. He’s drained. Really, no energy at all. And there’s no coffee in his system yet, he can’t process anything.

 

“And oh,” the voice adds, a strange lilt to it, a little hesitant. “Who’s Shiro?”

 

That wakes Keith up.

 

He throws the covers off with and there’s a loud yelp, the thud of a book against sheets and a whine as the covers lift up again.

 

“Don’t mandle your books that way,” a boy scowls at him. “It deserves care and love, not your blanket haphazardly thrown over it.”

 

Keith blinks rapidly, and he leans over to press the base of his palms against his eyes, feeling like it’s too early, the sun’s too bright, and he’s delirious. He opens his eyes again - no throbbing in his head, so it’s not a migraine or anything - and the boy’s still there, clutching his book, indignant expression on his face.

 

His mouth works faster than his mind can think, but Keith blesses his instincts because the first words out of his mouth are, “get out of my house.”

 

“ _Your_ house?!” The boy yells, eyebrow raised. “Excuse me, mister, this is _my_ house first, your house _second_. Get your facts right!”

 

Keith rubs at his eyes, drawing in a long breath and looks up. The boy - boy-man? Man? He kinda looks around Keith’s age, not too sure on that - has brown skin, looking like chocolate runs through his veins and his hair is even darker, sticking up in tufts like he’s just woken up. He’s lanky, long limbed and lean, dressed in a sky blue shirt and skinny jeans.

 

Woah, Keith thinks, blinking. Those jeans look _painted on_. But no, back to the very pressing issue at hand - Keith’s breath hitches a little, trips over itself when he realises the boy is just a little see through.

 

Only when he stays very still, like how he is right now, waiting for Keith’s reaction. He gets a little faint, chocolate brown skin turning a little pale, and Keith can see the outline of his door through him.

 

Keith takes a deep breath and shouts, gripping his covers and throwing it at the boy who’s seated on his bed. The boy yells, shock painted on his face and the covers just _fall right through him_ , and Keith runs out of his room.

 

The only weapon he has here is a baseball bat and he runs for the one in the living room - there’s another one in his room, closer to his bed, but Keith forgot to take that - and he holds it in front of him, ready to swing and make this guy crumple.

 

The boy stalks out of the room, book _still_ in his hand, but he immediately backpedals into the room when he sees Keith’s ready stance at the table, bat up and ready to defend.

 

“I’m a cool guy!” He says as he comes out of the room again, both hands empty and face up, the position of surrender. “Don’t hurt me!”

 

“You’re in my _house_ ,” Keith says slowly, voice trembling. He hopes he makes a menacing figure, baseball bat in hand and dressed in a loose T-shirt and sweatpants. “Get _out_.”

 

“First of all, _my house first_. And look, I _can’t_ , alright?” The boy spits out, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t leave.”

 

“Sure you can,” Keith throws back. He flaps one of his hands at the exit. “Door’s right there.”

 

“Yeah?” The boy says, challenging, and stomps over, throwing the door open. He takes a couple steps back and starts running, throwing himself at the corridor and-

 

He crashes into something, a wall that Keith can’t see, and he slides down, mouth twisting into a grimace as he looks at his skin. It bruises purple for a while, making Keith feel like a huge asshole, but it just fades after a couple of minutes, which is _not_ what bruises do.

 

And because Keith is an even bigger asshole, he says, “try the window.”

 

The boy glares at him but goes over nonetheless, sliding the window open. He raises an eyebrow at Keith as he knocks on what seems like air, and even throws a punch that looks like it’d hurt. Again, another wall that Keith can’t see.

 

He inches over to the exit and peeks out, checking if anyone in the corridor saw anything weird, like Keith standing in pajamas and holding a bat, preparing to attack thin air and closes the door.

 

“Okay,” he says. The boy looks really angry now, brows furrowed and teeth clenched, but he looks a little unhappy too, hands curling into fists as he looks to the side. “So you can’t leave. What _are_ you?”

 

“I don’t know,” the boy says, one hand reaching up to cup the back of his neck, rubbing like he’s nervous. “A ghost, maybe? I mean, I turn invisible sometimes, sometimes I’m not corporeal, I can’t leave this place - sounds like a ghost to me?”

 

“You don’t _know_?” Keith asks, incredulous. “How did you end up this way?”

 

“You _think_ I know?” the boy replies. “If I did, I’d probably get out of here way faster! I’m not stupid, man, I really- I don’t know.”

 

“I- okay.” Keith doesn’t really have anything else to say, now that they’ve established this guy is a ghost. “Can you make coffee? I’m dying.”

 

The boy brightens up a little, drifting over to the coffee machine that Keith painstakingly installed with a harried call to Shiro for help last night. “I can probably do that.”

 

“Yeah? Thanks.” The boy’s probably feeling pretty happy that he can finally do something, and if Keith gets something out of it, well that’s cool. He’s probably going to shower or something, get changed into something more presentable and maybe take the boy’s advice and head over to campus.

 

He’s almost in the shower, wearing nothing but his boxers when something clicks.

 

Keith runs out of the toilet, coming to a stop right in front of the table, and the boy quirks a confused smile up at him.

 

“Were you the one who broke that glass last night?” Keith asks, voice high.

 

The boy blanches, laughing a little weakly, and he inches to the side, trying not to look at Keith. “Uh, haha, maybe? I was just um, checking out who the new tenant was, y’know? Haha- don’t KILL ME!”

 

He takes off running into Keith’s room, turning incorporeal to run through the bed as Keith gives chase.

 

-=-

 

“By the way,” the boy murmurs as he flips through Keith’s notebook, both of them seated at the table. “My name’s Lance.”

 

Keith nods, scrolling through Twitter and typing something out as he chews. “I’m Keith.”

 

“Oh? Cool.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a review with your thoughts or drop by my [twitter](https://twitter.com/zxrysky) and [tumblr](http://zxrysky.tumblr.com/) .


End file.
